Nonbank Financial Companies
Floor Speech
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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank the chairman for yielding time.
I thank the Senator for his diligence, particularly in the area of the derivatives market and the fact that this legislation will be the first time--the first time--the over-the-counter derivatives market in this country will be regulated.
The fact that Congress made a mistake and said hands off to derivatives in 2000, and then an $80 trillion market exploded into what is today a $600 trillion dark market--the chairman has now made sure that for the first time ever, over-the-counter derivatives will be regulated. That means for the first time over-the-counter derivatives will have to be exchange-traded, which means there will be transparency. It is the first time over-the-counter derivatives will have to be cleared, which means a third party will have to validate whether there is real money behind these transactions.
It is the first time the CFTC will be able to enforce aggregate position limits across all exchanges, which means you cannot hide this dark market derivative money on some exchange that is not properly regulated or try to make the market across all exchanges. It is the first time things like the London Loophole will be closed so we cannot have markets and exchanges that are not regulated. So the American people will know something as dangerous as credit default swaps--which brought down our economy--that now for the first time we will have regulation of these over-the-counter derivatives.
I thank the chairman for his efforts in that area.
A $600 trillion market, which is greater than 10 times the size of world GDP, is a danger to our economy if it is not regulated. Thank God we are going to be regulating it for the first time. I would encourage all my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who at one point in time said these are too complicated to understand--understand, they brought down our economy and understand we are going to, for the first time, regulate over-the-counter derivatives.
I thank the chairman for his leadership.
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